Well if you look through the history of this planet, its never had a steady climate, its the nature of nature.Its just the internet is new and humans have never been so connected so news be it true or false travels fast.I would say the planets climate has always fluctuate its just we've never spoke about it, we've just adapted.Its best, i think to move on from this subject do as much as you can to look after nature and be happy.There are lots of people wanting other people to belive in there own illusion, very funny business.AnywayBe happyknighter

Well if you look through the history of this planet, its never had a steady climate, its the nature of nature.Its just the internet is new and humans have never been so connected so news be it true or false travels fast.I would say the planets climate has always fluctuate its just we've never spoke about it, we've just adapted.Its best, i think to move on from this subject do as much as you can to look after nature and be happy.There are lots of people wanting other people to belive in there own illusion, very funny business.AnywayBe happyknighter

Hi, knighter,You seem quite vague and maybe confused about reality and illusion ... "the internet is new" (so it exists) but "if i think about our poor beautiful planet burning up with everyone on it its just an illusion". Either they are both illusion, or both real. And a conventionally-real "you" sat at a conventionally-real computer to type your message, and a conventionally-real "me" is sitting in a conventionally-real chair in a conventionally-real city in a conventionally-real Australia ... you get the idea. In that conventional reality, our actions have consequences and Buddhism teaches that we must accept responsibility for them.So we should choose carefully - know the facts and act upon them as compassionately as possible.In this case, the facts are that human activity is changing the climate far faster than it has changed before (apart from when a meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs ) and if we don't do something about it, soon, millions of people and billions of other living creatures will suffer because we/they can't adapt fast enough to survive the changes. Please, inform yourself before deciding not to act. Start here, if you like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change.

There used to be a day when we were willing to invest in a bright future.

I did some research on geocraft.com The author is:

Monte Hieb - Mining Engineer Monte Hieb is the author of several popular web pages skeptical of Anthropogenic Global Warming, serving as a evangelist for the viewpoint (he does not state his qualification in climatology or a related science). He is an employee at the West Virginia Office of Miner’s Health, Safety, and Training.http://www.takeonit.com/expert/66.aspx

I'd like to jump in here, perhaps 'a bit late in the day' and make the comment that there is such widespread scientific consensus that human endevours have caused some form of climate change, I honestly do not believe that such a vast swathe of the world's scientists could be wrong. It's possible of course, but very unlikely.

Who is to say whether it's as bad as they say it is, or whether nature will not right it herself at some point. I'm no expert, but I think these debates by armchair scientists are foolish. So many well respected scientists have staked their reputations on the fact that human's have caused some form of climate change.

"There is no scientific body of national or international standing rejected the findings of human induced climate change" - "n an October 2011 paper published in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, researchers from George Mason University analyzed the results of a survey of 489 scientists working in academia, government, and industry. The scientists polled were members of the American Geophysical Union or the American Meteorological Society and listed in the 23rd edition of American Men and Women of Science, a biographical reference work on leading American scientists. Of those surveyed, 97% agreed that that global temperatures have risen over the past century. Moreover, 84% agreed that "human-induced greenhouse warming" is now occurring. Only 5% disagreed with the idea that human activity is a significant cause of global warming." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... Dissenting

Not being an expert, and not being willing to sift through pages and pages of arguments here, I wonder if a dissenter could fill me in on the basic arguments of dissent here and explain to me why they think it is that such a vast majority of scientists have got it wrong, where they went wrong in doing so, and why it is that they continue to hold their positions in the face of evidence that (according to you) is enough to prove that human's are not the cause of climate change.

I guess to cut a long story short - I feel that if the dissenters arguments had any merit, scientists of good repute and standing would be swarming to get in behind. After all, if it did turn out that we human's weren't the cause of climate change - It would be highly beneficial to us. We wouldn't have to worry about our carbon emissions at all. It would be business as usual and happy times all round.

"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

BlackBird wrote:II guess to cut a long story short - I feel that if the dissenters arguments had any merit, scientists of good repute and standing would be swarming to get in behind. After all, if it did turn out that we human's weren't the cause of climate change - It would be highly beneficial to us. We wouldn't have to worry about our carbon emissions at all. It would be business as usual and happy times all round.

First: Don't confuse quantity of "scientists" with quality. There are plenty of scientists who do NOT believe in AGW. I have provided a lot of sources. I can dig them out again if you want.

Second: Carbon Tax.

Also, AGW is such a heated topic, like religion, that some scientists do not want to speak out against it as it is not very "PC".

And now AGW proponents are in serious trouble:

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents....

"It cannot be denied that this is one of the hottest issues in the scientific community," says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. "We don't really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point."http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 62092.html

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

So your argument is Ad Hominem rather than arguing about specific points?

The ordovician case totally complicated simplistic "CO2 causes temperature rise". Even your skepticalscience site admits that solar activity is another factor. Something tells me that astronomical events play much greater part. So as bad as pollution is, our CO2 footprint is not the cause.

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."

Also, AGW is such a heated topic, like religion, that some scientists do not want to speak out against it as it is not very "PC".

- I'm not conflating quantity with quality. There are many, many scientists of good standing and excellent repute who stake their reputations on human induced climate change. Many more than dissent.

- I don't see what the Carbon Tax has to do with the price of fish. Scientists don't get a pay out for it.

- I'm sorry but I don't really believe that many scientists would be afraid to speak out because it's not "pc". Scientists generally have quite a lot of testicular fortitude when it comes to speaking the truth.

I'm reading the article you posted now, it seems quite interesting.

mettaJack

"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

So your argument is Ad Hominem rather than arguing about specific points?

No, after I systematically refuted every point you made and pointed out that you were mis-representing every one of your sources except for geocraft.com, I decided to get off the broken record. I was planning to drop out of this pointless debate, and for my own purposes of deeper understanding, I decided to look into the background of each of our sources. The only source that actually supported your conclusions was geocraft.com, and my favorite source was skepticalscience.com. On skepticalscience.com I was able to track sources back to peer-reviewed, very publicly discussed and debated research. That's as legit as I'm qualified to understand. For geocraft.com I quickly noticed that while some of his data is sourced, his conclusions are not. Most of the people who agree with him are politicians, journalists, and fossil fuel special interests, none of whom are qualified to study or draw conclusions regarding climate science. That website is the opinion of a single person with no background in climate science who works for the fossil fuel industry. Why would I believe him over 97% of the of the climate science community.

Also:

Wikipedia wrote:An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an argument made personally against an opponent instead of against their argument.[2] Ad hominem reasoning is normally described as an informal fallacy,[3][4][5] more precisely an irrelevance.[6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem]

Pointing out that your source is biased, unqualified, and unsourced is not attacking the man, it is attacking the credibility of his conclusions. That is quite relevant. You have made similar, yet even more abstract claims that 97% of scientists are more interested in passing Carbon taxes than having a meaningful scientific career. You brought character attack into this debate. Live with the consequences.

You're on absolutely the right track, Buckwheat. Reliable sites start with RealClimate, Skeptical Science, Climate Progress (all blogs or private sites, but fully referenced and not aligned with fossil fuel interests), NOAA and CSIRO (the Aussie equivalent) (government science bodies), and Wikipedia which is about 97% accurate and, again, is fully referenced.Outwards links from any of them will generally be to equally reputable sites or be clearly flagged as dubious.

Well exaggeration or not, it was still interesting. Another good point the article made was that any plateau would undoubtedly be temporary. I don't really see how it supports Alex's arguments, but perhaps there is not a terrible amount of viable sources out there and this was the best of a bad bunch so to speak.

Buckwheat wrote:Pointing out that your source is biased, unqualified, and unsourced is not attacking the man, it is attacking the credibility of his conclusions. That is quite relevant. You have made similar, yet even more abstract claims that 97% of scientists are more interested in passing Carbon taxes than having a meaningful scientific career. You brought character attack into this debate. Live with the consequences.

Well said.

"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

There are still 9000 years before dharma ending age so there is no end of world. Thereafter, more severe tragic of human and nature happenings and it will reform itself when people getting lesser are tire of hurting one another, beginning to realize graciousness amongst living beings. They also started to care for one another, charitable and living in metta. And gradually the tragic of both nature and human will be getting lesser and vanished. And for global cooling, more people adopt vegetarianism means metta to animals and to nature due to more crop farming and fertile land, healthier earth, healthier you.

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path. He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self.

Hi, knighter,You seem quite vague and maybe confused about reality and illusion ... "the internet is new" (so it exists) but "if i think about our poor beautiful planet burning up with everyone on it its just an illusion". Either they are both illusion, or both real. And a conventionally-real "you" sat at a conventionally-real computer to type your message, and a conventionally-real "me" is sitting in a conventionally-real chair in a conventionally-real city in a conventionally-real Australia ... you get the idea. In that conventional reality, our actions have consequences and Buddhism teaches that we must accept responsibility for them.So we should choose carefully - know the facts and act upon them as compassionately as possible.In this case, the facts are that human activity is changing the climate far faster than it has changed before (apart from when a meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs ) and if we don't do something about it, soon, millions of people and billions of other living creatures will suffer because we/they can't adapt fast enough to survive the changes. Please, inform yourself before deciding not to act. Start here, if you like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change.

I dont really understand what your first few sentences where on about,but anyway.Just to let you know I've been looking after my patch of the planet for about20 years now, like a lot of my friends this new age thinking about lookingafter the planet an't new, and i feel quite removed from it,nature = change, get used to it, learn to adapt. I'll say again, i dont care what anyone says!!! i'll carry on looking after my patch of the planet like i did before anyone started to think about the planet being hot or cold and carry on loving my familyand tolerate the people who are on another path.you cant change the whole world, just yourself my friend!. Be happyknighter

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion … ...He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.John Stuart Mill

BlackBird wrote:Well exaggeration or not, it was still interesting. Another good point the article made was that any plateau would undoubtedly be temporary. I don't really see how it supports Alex's arguments, but perhaps there is not a terrible amount of viable sources out there and this was the best of a bad bunch so to speak..

AGW proponents were screaming how temperatures are going up and will continue to go up. Recent 10 years proved that assertion to be a bit overblown.

One of many reasons why I don't agree with AGW is that during period in Ordovician (4000-5000), CO2 levels were ~4400 vs current 396.80 and yet the temperature was COLD LIKE TODAY. Kim and Buckwheat's site says that it was because solar activity was low. Great. So solar activity is crucial factor.

Why are we so certain that similar situation will not play out today (solar activity, not merely CO2 determine the temperature)?

And >95% of CO2 is produced by nature anyways. Why we don't complain to it and pray that it stops producing so much CO2?

"Life is a struggle. Life will throw curveballs at you, it will humble you, it will attempt to break you down. And just when you think things are starting to look up, life will smack you back down with ruthless indifference..."